Mercy Heidelberg or northern Epping

I’ve given birth at 3 different hospitals - two of them being the mercy and most recently the northern. I could not fault the northern for my labour/delivery. It was a planned induction and honestly my midhusband and student midwife were amazing and even though I was induced it was by far my best experience - like I laughed most of my waters out, they helped me get baby into position as she was sunny side up, they listened to things I didn’t want and didn’t force them or bring them up after I’d mentioned them, they offered advice on how to speed things along, they checked me frequently and I just felt heard. Nothing against the mercy it was still a good experience but it was pretty average - baby was quick/had meconium in utero, I had two midwives and it was a chill environment but felt I was more so just a number for the evening/let’s get baby out and move you etc. You’re welcome to msg me to ask me any further questions or anything else

Thankyou for that. My induction kept failing and they only realised an hour before they induced me that I had preeclampsia so my son began deteriorating as my blood pressure kept rising and needed an emergency c-section, my son ended up in special care nursery, they were amazing down there, it was more my care back on the ward I had one nurse for 2 days who never came to do my obs or keep up with my pain relief and ignored the buzzer and then accused me of never being there when she came in. I was too unwell to get out of bed and was always there, was just a very stressful time. I was also meant to be induced at 37 weeks as they didn’t want me to go over as I had gestational diabetes but then someone else refused to book me in for 37weeks. This time around I am opting for a planned c-section and not wanting to be induced again, I’m In greensborough though so not sure if the northern will take me, I’ve also been told the mercy won’t book in 21 week ultrasounds anymore

…. And telling people to go elsewhere and pay for it

I don’t think it’d hurt to see if it’s what you want. I was technically too far out for the mercy however my GP sent off the referral and they accepted it. My first and third were inductions and my middle was spontaneous. I think you’ll find good/bad with every hospital/experience. What’s important is that you feel heard and looked after. Advocate for yourself regardless of where you go - there’s always internal systems that you can go through, speak to NUM & request a new nurse if you feel like you’re not being cared for by a particular staff member and these options are all well within your rights to do so. I used to be afraid to speak up/not want to bother staff etc. but you are there for a reason and you deserve attention and care. No matter where you go a 20wk (morphology) scans are standard across the board. The mercy we’re looking to induce me due to my baby being on the smaller side and found the antenatal care to be thorough. The northern were also thorough at my appts

Some places do charge for the morph scan some places are still free - you’d just have to call around and check

I don’t know if my mistake last time was doing shared care and maybe that’s how some things were missed. Ideally mercy is closer and they will have all my records, we were just stuffed around big time on day of delivery then things started going from bad to worse. Don’t want to be that stressed this time around. I’ve always said I want a planned Csection next time around but now I’m thinking maybe natural, but I just don’t want to be induced again

From what I’ve heard planned c-sections are much less stressful. Given all that you’ve been through I would opt out of shared care. And don’t hesitate to go into hospital for anything. I went probably 9x for reduced movements, he was measuring on the smaller side so I ended up having fortnightly growth scans from 30-36wks, and alternating fortnightly CTG monitoring & OB visits. I couldn’t fault the antenatal care I received strictly going through the mercy tbh. Also you can request to speak with a perinatal mental health team for added reassurance and processing things. I did total care, perinatal mental health and speaking with a social worker when pregnant with my third and found it helped me in so many ways!!!